12 January 2008

+ Surfing Naked

When we use the Interweb, we surf naked. Nothing is left unseen and we lose our privacy in its entirety. There is an SMS service in Australia called Bongo (199BONGO) which can answer any question or tell you about any person, so it claims.

Bongo's website says to have a massive data base, and after doing a check on me, I was somewhat surprised with the responding SMS...

"Bongo knows that Zac has a very dirty sense of humour, he has never been much of a morning person and he will be coming into money this year."

People who know me fairly well would say this is quite surprisingly true. This ex employee claims that is it simply done with a Google search. A quick search through social networking, work, school, university and clubs etc. could reveal such information.

My Facebook page would reveal the first two points in the message, that is if they weren't generic. And as to coming into money this year, the Monash University Scholarship page reveals that I'm expecting a payment in a few months.

The key note here is not that your information is available but rather how quickly it can be accessed.